Designed by Herman Hollerith to assisst in summarizing information, the Tabulating Machine was developed to help process data for the US Census in 1890. The 1880 census had taken several years to tabulate, and it was estimated that the 1890 census would take approximately twice as long, so a faster method was needed. In a competition to find a more reliable method of tabulation, Hollerith won with his tabulating machine. It used punched cards with round holes, while a set of spring loaded wires were suspended over the card reader. So Hollerith's machine was used for the 1890 census and the results were obtained faster than it was previously expected.
